In today’s world, attacks on web sites by hackers are common. We need to take precautions to prevent the security in our web sites from being compromised. There isn’t any built-in utility for WordPress to test security, but there is a plugin by Michael Torbert that can be installed for this purpose.

WP Security Scan examines a WordPress installation for security problems and if it finds them, recommends a course of action to correct them.
Some of the functions that it performs are:

  • test the strength of passwords
  • examine file permissions to prevent unauthorized usage
  • checks the security of the database
  • hides the version number of WordPress
  • protect the WordPress admin account
  • remove the WP Generator META tag from the core code

The plugin is easy to install and it found several problems on my blog, which were also easy to fix. I strongly recommend all WordPress users install this extension and properly security their web site.
You can download WP Security Scan at wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/.